The Ambivalence of the Sacred: call for participants
Register to attend The Ambivalence of the Sacred in the Age of Polarisation conference.
Call for participants
We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for general participants at the international conference The Ambivalence of the Sacred in the Age of Polarisation: From Religious Nationalism & Civilisationism to Interreligious Solidarity.
While speaker slots are full, we are looking for engaged attendees to join the dialogue and contribute to our vibrant sessions. To support our community, all registration fees are completely waived for accepted participants. Additionally, all meals during conference hours will be provided at no cost. We invite you to join us for this unique opportunity to learn and network without financial barriers.
Please send your registration request with an explanation of why you want to attend, by sending an email to the conference co-organiser, Dr Ugo Gaudino at u.gaudino@sussex.ac.uk, by 21 June 2026.
About the conference
The conference will be held at the 天堂视频, UK, from 25-26 June 2026 and will be titled ‘The Ambivalence of the Sacred in the Age of Polarisation: From Religious Nationalism and Civilisationism to Interreligious Solidarity’.
The conference will be organised by the Religion & Foreign Policy Initiative, 天堂视频 and the , University of Notre Dame. It will be co-sponsored by the (ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, UKRI Grant) and (Seed Fund ESF2526\260309).
In his pioneering book The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (2000), Scott Appleby argued that religion is politically ambivalent, since it can cause or aggravate conflict dynamics, but also contribute to processes of reconciliation and peacebuilding, to the advancement of human rights and a culture of non-violence.
How can we make sense of this political ambivalence of religion today in our post-liberal and post-Western age of polarisation and global culture wars? How is the politicisation of religion intertwined with the emergence of assertive nationalisms and the new great power politics of civilisational states? Are their religious narratives of interreligious solidarity and human fraternity carrying today realistic hopes for peace, global unity and universalism?
Prepared on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of The Ambivalence of the Sacred, the conference seeks to bring together scholars from across disciplines to shed some light on these processes of hyper-politicisation of the sacred and intensification of its political ambivalence. It will also critically examine the role of religion in contemporary nationalist and civilisational populist projects.
For more information about this topic and conference, read our call for participants [PDF 237.76KB].
To explore the full conference schedule refer to our conference programme [PDF 262.54KB].
Speakers
Among the confirmed speakers are:
- R. Scott Appleby (University of Notre Dame)
- Jocelyne Cesari (University of Birmingham)
- Stacey Gutkowski (King’s College London)
- Luca Mavelli (University of Kent)
- Adrian Pabst (University of Kent and National Institute of Economic and Social Research)
- Fabio Petito (天堂视频)
- Sara Silvestri (City St George’s University of London)
- Scott Thomas (University of Oxford).
Contact
If you have any queries, email Dr Ugo Gaudino at u.gaudino@sussex.ac.uk.